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Tuesday, May 7, 2013

A little OCD, planning ahead, and a lot of cardigans!

First, let me thank those who linked up to my first party yesterday! You ladies are terrific! It's all about visibility and you have given me a great opportunity.

Last Friday I had an unexpected day without grandchildren so I decided to do a little organizing. We are taking a couple of trips soon and are sending luggage and golf clubs ahead to avoid paying the high baggage fees. If you have traveled by air and never Fed Exed your luggage ahead, I highly recommend it. No lost bags. Period. There is planning involved though. Thinking through carefully what you will need while away and figuring out if you can do without it before and after your trip for a few days is challenging. I have been caught a few times without enough "necessities" due to not thinking carefully enough.

We usually travel in the late spring and mid summer. My husband has an annual golf trip in late May to early June each year and then we take a trip together around the beginning of July. This year I get to go on both! Now mind you, we have only been doing this the last few years since all the children are now on their own. It was not even possible when we had 3 in college together or we were in the midst of planning a wedding. And we still have 2 daughters not married, so there will be a time when we might have to give up the summer trip.

But, back to the planning. If you are going to ship your luggage, you still have a carry on bag and this is where I always take a change of undies, whatever makeup adheres to the 3 oz. rule,toothbrush, hairbrush, etc..... We purchase shampoo, conditioner, hairspray, toothpaste, deodorant, etc... when we get to our destination. Normally we try to stay in a B & B to save $ and for the ambience and they are glad to have us leave these products behind for another guest who may have forgotten something. We have been in that position before and were grateful to not have to make a trip out to a store.

So... on Friday I decided to organize the cardigans. I just retired form teaching last year and my "uniform" for a work day most always involved a skirt or pants and a cardigan, I LOVE sweaters. I wear them all year round. Even here in a Texas summer. Mine are almost all cotton or some lightweight synthetic. As you get older, upper arms are not the best part of a woman, so I hide these areas with a cute sweater. The fact that cardigans have been stylish for a long while makes it nice.

This was the back of my closet where I began.

These were at one point organized, but over time ( and daughters borrowing ) they became quite jammed together and wrinkled. It was even hard to tell what was in there!

I took them out and separated them by color. OK... this might be when you want to take a deep breath!

Some even have matching shoes 'cause I'm like that!

And of course you buy two identical red sweaters because one has long sleeves and one has 3/4 length sleeves! ﻿

And this is probably my most favorite! A simple gray, 100% cashmere sweater from..... Target!

L O V E this sweater!

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There was a discard pile. Why would I ever have bought a sweater that looked liked this? I rarely wear anything near my face with a pattern. CRAZY!

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After all was said and done they looked like this. All lined up in a row. All gathered by color. And yes, you see fur in there. My mother left me her mink stole when she passed and it is behind a little number I found years ago at an antique mall. Cashmere with a mink collar. Hardly ever wear it because that is just the sort of sweater you wear to work. Right?

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So ladies. What do you think? Any guesses out their as to how many? This is certainly nothing to be proud of. Rather, quite embarrassing. A little hoarding problem? ( I refuse to die until I have every color cardigan made!)

There are....................................................60. Yep! 60! I told Mr. Golfer that he could only wish my yarn stash was this small.

5 comments:

Love the yarn stash! I just transferred all my yarn from a drawer to shelves, but since we moved to Mexico my yarn stash has shrunk considerably (well, actually, it still exists...in a cottage in California). I get such joy from looking at yarn sorted by color - I'd probably have a yarn stash even if I didn't knit or crochet!

Wanda - I just noticed your question as I was reading back through your posts. I wish there was some way that responses to comments would be automatically emailed to the commenter. Oh well. The very short answer to your question is that God drew us here. We weren't looking to move, it wasn't at a perfect time of our lives for such a big change, but when we visited the town we now live in, we were draw in like it was a Star Wars tractor beam - we couldn't imagine not living here. And because we moved here, my husband lost his fear of Catholicism (we'd been evangelical charismatic Christians for 40 years before that) and we entered the Church on Easter Vigil 2010 - something I had been praying about for several years before. So God worked all things together for good, and we ended up in a place we love beyond anything we could have imagined!

Wanda....I love your sweater collection. I am a 'sweater kind of girl' too so I can relate. How many of those did you knit?Your yarn stash is so organized and impressive! Looks like a mini shoppe!Janice